How to Fix Dating Apps

Part 5 of The Great Dating Divide

As we saw in Part 4, dating apps are broken. But does that mean we should give up on them? I don’t think so. I think they need to improve. As we have said, more and more people are using them to meet their significant other. And this number will only increase over time.

Dating apps offer several advantages over meeting people in person or through friends and family. Let’s go through the positives.

Filtering is better on dating apps.

Your friends and family think they know you, but they usually don’t. And your mom might think that her friend from pickleball’s daughter is cute, but you don’t agree. And your personal training client might be confident that one day you’ll be Christian, so you should meet one of her son’s Christian girlfriends. But you’re pretty confident that you won’t be a Christian anytime soon.

Let’s say you meet a person in a bar or a coffee shop. You’re meeting them based on looks, just like with the dating apps. And there are only so many people in bars on any given night. And they’re not preselected for the things you want. They’re not even preselected for being single or not. That means you’re going to have to talk to a lot of people before you even find one that fits your criteria. But by that point, you might be so drunk that you might blow your chances with her and get a drink thrown in your face while you’re at it. If you’re a girl, you might get so drunk that the guy who you thought was soooooo cute the night before at the bar, you realize after waking up the next morning in his racecar bed is too dependent on his parents to take seriously.

The pool of potential applicants is far higher on dating apps.

Let’s say you’re a lady who wants a guy who doesn’t drink and volunteers. You’re not going to meet him at the common bars and clubs which he avoids. So, what should you do instead? You could go volunteer!!!! But, alas, few men volunteer. The rare guys who do volunteer are prime targets for the other women who are volunteering to snatch up before you even have the chance to introduce yourself. This gender ratio mismatch makes volunteer organizations a highly competitive market for meeting men. And do you really have the time to volunteer at every animal shelter in your town to find Mr. Right? Probably not.

But if you filter for ‘doesn’t drink’ and ‘interests include volunteering’ on a dating app, you might find a guy who fits your criteria. And they’re actively looking for a relationship. And you know this because they’re on a dating app.

Better filtering plus more single people who are looking for the thing you are equals dating apps should be awesome. And they should be superior to your mom saying “oh, she’s cute, why don’t you date her” or Becky stealing Mr. Right from you at the dog shelter.

Most of my dating experiences have come from dating apps. I’ve met some incredible women from them. I met my ex-girlfriend of 8-months on Hinge. And she is a great lady. And now that I’m single, I continue to meet great women.

I personally always felt that dating apps were a positive. However, they are frustrating. As a guy not in the top 10% of beautiful men that all women want to spend the night with, I can speak to the frustration that most men feel. I get very few matches. Maybe a few a week. And I must play a very persistent game to manipulate … I mean uh, convince (?) these women to let me take them out on a first date.

I’m fairly nice, fit, chivalrous, and have more interesting prompts than telling you about my stance on whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza (if you don’t get this, then you’re lucky). I own a gym. I don’t drink, do drugs, or smoke cigarettes. And I’m six feet tall. But I still struggle with dating apps. Thanks mom and dad.

But I found out something while on a date that changed my whole perception on how dating apps should work.

This girl I was seeing, let’s call her Jessica, and I were discussing how we decided to choose each other on Hinge. This girl Jessica is beautiful. She is a former college cheerleader. Out of my league, for sure. And for me to match with a girl as good-looking as her on Hinge was honestly a shock. And we didn’t just match. She messaged me first. That. Does. Not. Happen. This must’ve been pure luck.

But when she told me how she found me, I realized it was not luck at all.

Jessica values a few things. She values a guy who doesn’t do drugs, smoke cigarettes, and drinks very little. She also wants someone tall (six feet and up (many guys lie about this, btw)). These are pretty strict filters. Just to get a guy over six-foot is a big ask. Then to ask him to not drink, do drugs, or smoke is basically asking to cut out 90% of all modern men from her dating pool. Which is what she was looking to do.

On Hinge, you can pay for ‘Hinge+”, which gives you enhanced filtering. Jessica just got out of a relationship that she had been in since she was young. She has never really dated before. She had never used dating apps before. And as a young, professional lady, she had the money to spend on the egregiously priced Hinge+ subscription ($10-$25 per week depending on how long your billing cycle is). She paid for one week at a time for two weeks. And she set the enhanced filters based on the things she valued. And her experience was far unlike the other women who typically use dating apps.

With these advanced filters, very few guys showed up in her feed. And I was one of the few. Also, more importantly, she showed up in very few guys’ feeds. As a result, she wasn’t getting a lot of inbound messages. This made it easier for her to filter for the best possible match. It also solved the paralysis by choice dilemma. Furthermore, she was able to use more of her System 2 mode of thought to select a match.

And it made it worth her time to message a guy she thought was interesting first. That is because she didn’t have to waste time combing through the inbound cesspool that is most girls ‘Liked You’ section. On Hinge, this is the section of the app that shows you all the people who have messaged you, even though you haven’t shown interest in them yet.

After two weeks of the $25 per week subscription, she cancelled the paid plan. The next day, when the advanced filters were turned off, she got 25 new inbound messages. She promptly paused her account.

Her experience on Hinge, with the enhanced filters, seems far more positive than most other women. She didn’t get inundated with messages from low quality dudes. She met a guy who met her criteria, and we had some fun dates that didn’t leave her with any crazy stories (hopefully not, at least).

However, she had to pay for the right to have a good time. I’m all for capitalism, but I have a hunch that making female users pay for premium filtering features is short-sighted.

You see, women aren’t even the ones paying for these apps most of the time anyway. 41% of men say they have paid for a dating service, while only 29% of women have said the same (Pew). But as we have seen, men make up for most of the users on dating apps. That means that the smallest portion of users (the women) are also the least likely to pay. Which means they bring in very little revenue.

From a product perspective, you want to delight your users. Give them a reason to keep coming back for more. TikTok has an algorithm as addictive as crack-cocaine. Facebook is the best place to connect with friends from high school. X is the best place to speak freely about how you love Trump. All these products think about how they can keep their users happy and coming back. This drives revenue.

But dating apps have missed the plot. Their users are pissed. They’re leaving in droves. They’re looking for better ways to meet people. Because meeting people on their platform makes them either depressed, if they are (like) me, or overwhelmed, if they are a woman.

And all of this is rooted in a broken pricing model.

Dating apps could learn something from the real world. Specifically, bars and clubs. Bars and clubs constantly run specials to get women into their venue. Free drinks, no cover charges, and more. And where there are many women, men will come. And those men will spend money. Often, to get the women that the bar or club encouraged to be there with the free stuff they gave them. And when the ratio of women to men is even, or even slightly elevated on the female side, you have the hottest club/bar in town. Dating apps should do the same.

Women get premium filters for free. That is the solution. All these dating apps work the same. When you turn on filters, you only see people who meet your criteria. And only those people see you. This would dramatically cut down on how overwhelmed women feel. And it would make them choose different types of men. They wouldn’t just engage their System 1 part of their brain and mindlessly swipe. They would slow down. Look at the profile of a guy. Because he has already been pre-selected. Looks will matter less.

As a result, good men will thrive. Guys who value women, who are disciplined, and who are charismatic will trump hot douchebags.

Women will have a better time. They will flock to these apps because the experience is better. And more men will come. And more men will probably pay to get priority likes. As a result, the app that does this will outcompete everyone.

Now this is all coming from one experience I had on a date with one girl. But, doesn’t it just make sense?

What will the future of dating apps be like?

To take it one step further, the show “Black Mirror” has an even better solution. In their episode “Hang the DJ”, two lovers meet on a dating app. But the dating app is not what it seems originally. (Spoilers incoming)

The episode is set in the near future. Two star-crossed lovers are in what appears to be an enclosed environment specifically designed for them to meet their perfect match. They have a little handheld device that tells them when they have a new match, what time they will meet their new match, and how long they will be with their new match until they must leave them.

Our two main characters meet each other in the beginning and have an awkward time. That being said, they are kind of a cute couple. But they are told by their handheld devices that they will only be together for twenty-four hours. After which they will separate to find someone new. They follow the rules dutifully.

Then, they each have a series of relationships with subpar matches. Some of which they must be with for up to a year or more.

As the viewer, you think to yourself: How can they spend so much time in this place that is designed solely for them to date? Is this some kind of paid-for experience for the young and wealthy to find their soulmate? A sabbatical from life in which the only goal is to pair yourself with the most compatible person? And leave it all up to a computer to decide? How strange.

At least, that’s what I was thinking. Until the end of the episode, that is.

The star-crossed lovers (I honestly don’t even know what this means, but I feel like I’m using it correctly, so no need to Google) are then paired with each other again by the handheld device after many miserable and hollow dating experiences. They fall in love. And then realize they need to escape the clutches of the handheld device before it strips them away from each other again.

They get to the wall where the enclosed dating environment ends, climb it, and jump over the other side. Here, they are met with many other copies of themselves, who also jumped over the wall to freedom. Strange.

Then, it cuts to a shot of a phone with the female main character’s face on it, circled in green, with the text “99.6% Match” underneath. Another cut to a shot of our male main character as he looks up while seated in a crowded bar. Across the bar, he locks eyes with our female main character, phone in hand (probably seeing a similar screen with his face on it), smiling at him. Ah, love at first site (online dating pun).

You see, the whole episode was set inside a computer simulation. In which the app creators simulated the personalities of our main characters, paired them with other users, and determined which users are most compatible after the computer models ran their course.

And once that app exists, you’ll never need your Christian mother to find you a nice Christian boy ever again.

In summation of The Great Dating Divide

Women need to value men. Men need to become valuable. And they need to find each other in a way that is focused on their compatibility on a foundational level, not a surface level.

I hope that helps.